On the high end of the Fibre Channel switch industry, McData has seen some challenges to its Director class of switch from Brocade. In the HBA market, the 2-Gbps class of cards has emerged and ranges from quite good to quite bad. Overall, the quality and usability of the cards have increased considerably.

A new market has emerged with the burgeoning convergence of Fibre Channel, Ethernet and IP. Devices such as Cisco Systems' SN 5420 Storage Router, Nishan Systems' IPS 4000 Series multiprotocol IP storage switch, and Crossroads Systems' Crossroads 10000 Storage Router let companies connect their Fibre Channel SAN to their Ethernet data network for IP connectivity.

These products bridge the gap between traditional Fibre Channel SANs and the Ethernet iSCSI networks, and fit nicely into the evolving storage picture. The future success of SAN networks will depend heavily on these products in the coming years, as companies move to preserve their existing Fibre Channel infrastructures while investing in more IP-centric architectures.

The conversion from pure block-level storage to IP storage is under way and awaits the debut of 10-Gbps Ethernet to bring it to fruition. Just about every storage company is engaged in IP storage initiatives to varying degrees.

Some traditional Fibre Channel vendors are promoting Fibre Channel IP, as the Ethernet community doggedly forges ahead with iSCSI. Over the past year, there's been a blizzard of announcements heralding iSCSI initiatives, while the Fibre Channel IP powers sat in stony silence like a group of spoiled 9-year-olds suddenly aware their new toy is no longer the coolest. The fact that the iSCSI spec has sparked such frenzied anticipation even before it is finished is credible testimony to its promise.

The tangible results of the storage-market convergence are becoming apparent. Companies are talking about complete storage solutions, instead of how specific products will improve the overall situation.

Storage virtualization across more than one vendor's products is finally seeing the light of day--real-live products are running in real-live data-centers, taking some of the burden off data-center managers.

On the tape front, it's the same old story: smaller and smarter. Smaller tapes with increased data capacity is the name of the game. AIT3 tapes have come out and LTO has come into its own.

Tape automation units have followed suit. The menu systems on the best units are excellent and let administrators intuitively feel the operation of the machine. Other notable innovations have been made to serviceability and manageability. And an almost universal improvement has been the inclusion of a 2-Gbps Fibre Channel interface. The higher speeds have reduced backup times considerably.

A handful of new players, including FIA Storage Systems and Iomega Corp., joined the NAS (network-attached storage) sector over the past year, so established players are feeling a pinch on both features and price. The halcyon days of high margins are gone, and midrange companies are getting squeezed hardest.

The sweet spot that used to exist between the Snaps of the world and the likes of Network Appliance and EMC has been eroded. Companies on the low end offer more capacity and features at an attractive price, while the big guns on the high end are dropping their prices for the same rich feature set.

It's still rest in peace in the SSP (storage service provider) sector, though there remains a flicker at Hewlett-Packard and other companies. HP's gambit is to place more storage in your data center than you asked for and then sell it back to you on demand as part of its Federated Storage Management Architecture initiative. And some collocation facilities are selling storage to their managed clients, but only to established vendors.

As for pure storage devices, we saw the advent of ATA133--the last gasp for the tired old ATA standard. The clamoring for Serial ATA has begun. Vendors are claiming Serial ATA will be here midyear, but don't hold your breath. At this point, the continual price drops and performance increases of IDE are beginning to make inroads into the SCSI space.

Over the past year, IDE drives topped out with a prodigious single 160-GB drive for as little as $240 on the street. Network Appliance and other vendors are using IDE drives in devices that would normally contain SCSI. On the SCSI front, UltraSCSI 320 made its debut, and a proposal for Serial SCSI is in the works.

In the optical storage sector, writeable and rewriteable DVD technology in the $500 range is now available and well within reach of small and midsize businesses. The only downside is the confusion over standards. Unfortunately, several large, well-funded technology consortiums continue to muddy the waters with incompatible DVD formats. And as usual, it's the end user who pays the price.

Steven J. Schuchart Jr. covers storage and servers for Network Computing. Previously he worked as a network architect for a retail firm, PC and electronics technician, a computer store manager and freelance disc jockey. Send your comments on this article to him at schuchart@nwc.com.